Biden calls former VP Mondale 'giant' of political history

FILE – In an Oct. 30, 2012, file photo, former Vice President Walter Mondale, a former Minnesota senator, gestures while speaking at a Students for Obama rally at the University of Minnesota’s McNamara Alumni Center in Minneapolis. Mondale, a liberal icon who lost the most lopsided presidential election after bluntly telling voters to expect a tax increase if he won, died Monday, April 19, 2021. He was 93. (AP Photo/Jim Mone, File)

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — President Joe Biden has saluted his “friend of five decades” Walter Mondale, traveling to the University of Minnesota to remember the former vice president and Democratic Party elder whose memorial service was delayed for a year due to the pandemic.

Mondale died in April 2021 at age 93. He is credited with transforming the office of the vice presidency — which Biden himself held for eight years under President Barack Obama — expanding its responsibilities and making himself a key adviser to President Jimmy Carter’s administration.

Biden said Sunday that Mondale “was a giant in American political history.”